One of Australia’s largest lenders, the National Bank of Australia (NAB) has raised the interest rates on several of its fixed-rate home loans, following its rivals.
In a statement on Monday, the bank said its second, third and fourth-year package fixed rate for home loans would increase effective today, to 3.98 percent, 4.09percent, and 4.59 percent per annum respectively.
While the package fixed rates for the second, third, fourth and five year for residential investment home loans will change to 4.19 percent, 4.29 percent, 4.79 percent, and 4.79 percent per annum respectively.
However, the bank will lower its one-year package fixed rates for home and residential investment home loans to 3.89 percent and 3.99 percent per annum respectively.
“There is a range of factors that influence the funding that NAB – and all Australian banks – source so that we can provide home loans to our customers,” NAB chief operating officer, Antony Cahill, said.
“The cost of providing our fixed rate home loans has increased over recent months.”
“We continue to watch market and economic conditions to ensure we continue to lend and manage our business responsibly, so we remain strong and stable for the benefit of our customers, shareholders, and the broader economy,” Cahill said.
Cahill said NAB’s fixed rate home loans remain highly competitive – especially with today’s new one-year rates.
“We know that fixed rate home loans have become increasingly popular with our customers. We saw these applications more than double as a share of total applications in December, compared to in September last year,” Cahill said.
Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ have all raised rates on some of their fixed-rate mortgages in recent days, despite the Reserve Bank cash rate remaining at an all-time low of 1.5 percent.
